TTAC founder Robert Farago receives fame and notoriety at the tip of a gun. Not just a gun, Farago owns 18 of them – at least that’s what he disclosed to the Washington Post. The liberal paper has a big feature on the former car blogger who turned into the eye of the storm that surrounds the gun debate.

Farago workout – with Glock and daughter

Today, Farago does not leave home without his concealed Glock, the gun remains by his side even during yoga workout. This wasn’t always so. “He bought his first gun a week before the debut of TheTruthAboutGuns.com,” writes the Post. I can corroborate the story.

Farago in his bedroom

When Farago bailed at TTAC, he asked me to write for his new venture, TTAG. I told him I did not know much about guns. It’s not that they are alien to me. I have been hard of hearing on my right ear ever since I was 21, courtesy of a 45 which I carelessly loaded in a small room. The bullet went into the floor, inches from my foot. To this day, the first word I learn in a foreign language is “excuse me?” Hä? Mitä? Shenme? E? Come? Don’t ask how I got my hands on a 45 in Germany. Talk about gun control, and a land that was more drawn to 9 mil, or to the ubiquitous, if less man-stopping, 7.65. When I lived in a cabin in rural Virginia, I owned the guns to go with it. That, and the importance of Break-Free in America, or Ballistol in Europe, is all I know about guns.

Farago, sending a hail of blogger bullets

“You don’t need to know anything about guns to write about them,“ Farago assured me. “Look at me, what did I know about cars?” For some reason, I declined.

A good Jewish boy from a liberal family

It was good that Farago did only recently acquire the arsenal he now has in his basement. When he left TTAC, he did not depart on the best terms with TTAC’s new Canadian owners, and the thought of him showing up with an FN SCAR-16 in a meeting in Toronto remains unsettling, even after all those years.

Also, considering Farago’s hard-on for GM, it might be better he’s no longer writing about cars.

What does any of this have to do with an autoblog? This just wreaks of politics and sour feelings. Open your own blog on gun control if you want to push an agenda, but otherwise keep that crap off of TTAC forums Bertel.

…and yet another example of how TTAC has become tiresome and irrelevant WRT the topic of the automobiles. I am not even a gun owner/advocate and this article and the authors clear bias irks me. This place just keeps moving further and further down the list of sites that I frequent.

Gun control falls into the same category as religion or politics. The ability to generate a large number of responses/posts is a foregone conclusion; it is not a measure of the quality of the piece or its relevance to TTAC.

Her first time ever shooting. I gotta try to get my mom in there. My other aunt is a retired-NARC so she’s no stranger to guns.

It’s amazing watching her fire her first shot on video. She had it in her mind she wanted to fire a “9 Millimeter” without really knowing what that meant. The NRA-licensed gun trainer started her on a $1700 KIMBER .45.

Then…she continued on to OUTSHOOT both myself and her son who is an officer LOL.

I’m going to take aunti to THE RIFLE RANGE next and force her to use my FN FAL.308 and an AR-15.

@bigtruckseriesreview, you make it sound like red-neck, gap toothed, slack-jawed, auto parts strewn acrost the lawn, black sock sandal wearing, not surprised there’s a policeman in your living room at two in the morning, Hee-Haw paradise and completely irrelevant to TTAC.

Bertel, honestly brah, disappointed in this barefaced trolling that seriously is beneath you.

“Today, Farago does not leave home without his concealed Glock, the gun remains by his side even during yoga workout”

Now that is some rich, rich idiocy right there. Also, I more and more appreciate living in a country where almost all guns are banned. And a by-product of this – there is a pleasingly low amount of yoga related accidental shootings.

Ya know, this whole ‘right to own guns, it’s a free country thing’ puts me in mind of a (reluctant) conversation I had at a Washington cigar store. The owner noticed I was Canadian and asked me if I was OK with paying ‘all the taxes’ that we do in Socialist Canuckistan. In my thoughtful Canadian way, I allowed that they could be a titch onerous, but it’s how we paid for those things that every civilized country needs: (mostly) universal health care, keeping our roads from falling into the river, sending Stephen Harper on trips (maybe we can move the country the next time he’s gone).

Then he moved on to “Freedom.” What was really sticking in his craw was that he was limited to 4 chairs around a table in his shop. So that’s how many people can sit in his place as they smoke one of his fine products. And he can’t serve beverages: well, maybe water. And so on and so forth. His question, rhetorical, is: And this is a free country? You can carry as many guns as you want and wave them at people in your own home, but you can only have 3 friends smoking in your store.

@Don, good news! There’s lots of countries you can move to where everyone owns a gun! Such paradises as Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, Zaire, Congo, Kosovo, I could go on AND they’re all awaiting the JOY that is you and the FREEDOM you crave. Please partake at your earliest convienence.

Would that remain true if 150 million+ Americans spent around 2 hours/day using guns in close proximity to hundreds of other gun using Americans in all aspects of everyday life like they use cars? Especially if you didn’t need a license to carry a gun and the manufacturer had no liability for defects?

Les, You are more likely to die or get injured in a car accident anywhere in the World than get shot by a gun. The US still has the greatest overall and per capita by far “casualties” by firearms than any other developed nation on Earth. Switzerland also ranks very highly as well So their is a correlation between guns and population as well as their is with Spears, Bow and Arrows, Hunting knives. The more weapons of any sort in a community the more “casualties”
What I find interesting is deaths on roads by Automoblies is pretty well given a shrug of the shoulder by most people. It seems to be ignored as an inevitable cost of driving and does not generate the same angst as gun ownership.

Relevant facts, in the US (or as a US citizen serving abroad) it’s more likely to be killed as a lumberjack or fisher then as a soldier, it’s also more likely to be killed working as a pizza boy then as a police officer (due to the amount of driving probably). On the other hand, an armed civilian is much more likely to shoot himself or a member of his family then an intruder or criminal.

A not so fun fact is that a teenager is at least a 100 times more likely killed in a traffic accident on his way to school then in a act of violence in school.

@01 ZX3
That is one horribly un-accurate statistic. It relies – all the ones I’we seen at least – on (i) incidents reported to police, (ii) the polices classification of the incidents, that relies on the (iii) legislation in the individual country.
(i) Depends on peoples willingness to report crimes that in turn depends on peoples trust in the police and numerous other factors, in a unit as small as a US state figures might wary violently and in no way connected to actual crime rate.
ii) Depends on legal culture and departmental policy, will the police classify a violent robbery as “robbery” or; “attempted murder, assault, armed robbery and kidnapping” in the later case the crime rate will appear as quadruple compared to former case despite the actual crime rates being equal (counting only that incident).
(iii) Means that a crime that’s classified as rape in Finland might be totally legal in Nigeria or Georgia, the same way an “assault” in Germany might (not being well versed in German criminal law this is just a hypothetical) be a insulting and belittling language, whereas the same actions in Texas might be fighting words but nothing more.
You can try to compensate for these factors (with the least success regarding (i)) but doing this with common crimes “against person and health”, as the Swedish legislator puts it, is almost impossible due to the depressing amount of violent crimes in most countries. So instead you use murder as a proxy for all violent crimes, the definition for murder is usually quite consistent across countries and time, and even if the definitions change it’s still manageable to manually compensate for the changes of definition and differences across jurisdictions. There’s still problems associated with comparing murder rates but far more manageable then comparing all violent crimes.

I’m not saying that your point is moot, but rather that a “straight” country to country comparison isn’t very productive or informative.

Advance_92, that statistic’s only true because of suicide. Well over 10,000 people in the US use a gun as a means of committing suicide every year. Because they get the job done. But if guns weren’t available, people would still kill themselves regardless – the suicide rate in Japan is much higher than ours for example.

Speak for yourself. I, for one, stuck around I the early days DESPITE Farago, not because of him. Just from his writing style alone, I decided that this was one person I never had the slightest inclination to meet.

EXACTLY. Farago was a dishonest hack who never had an answer when called out on his blatant lies and obvious double standards. Not to mention the supreme irony of someone who spent his entire time complaining about GM reliability while driving a car with an engine that was guaranteed to fail (Boxster w/IMS bearing). At least he finally admits that he knows nothing about cars, much like his successors, which leads one to assume that TTAC was created as a vehicle for politics and anti-GM sentiment, which it remains today.

Extra Extra! Read all about it. Crackpot auto writer turned crackpot gun writer gets noticed by dead-tree journo before complete psychological break sends him into an underground bunker made from old school bus buried in back yard. You heard it here first.

That was actually one of the funnier things I’ve read all day. Having watched the many mentally challenged people on doomsday preppers (including buried bus guy) makes visualizing the whole thing easy and a pleasure.

The zealotry of a recent convert fueled by the self-importance of an affluent upbringing. The basic components of any Neocon.

People like this are really worrysome to those of us who were raised with guns and, most importantly, gun safety. Yeah, we all back the 2nd amendment etc, etc…. but you don’t have to turn into a right-wing Al Franken over it.

Exactly. I’m a liberal Canadian gun owner and I fervently believe in the right to bear arms for hunting, sport and even self defense. But only idiots who can’t do math own guns because they’re concerned about a future repressive government. Even if the worst happened (and it won’t) it won’t matter how much of a stockpile you’ve got, you will always be out gunned (not too mention out-manned, out-droned, out-tanked and out-nuked) by the military. And the more you worry about the black helicopters and the more you prepare for their arrival, the greater the chance the government WILL take an interest in your activities (e.g, Waco).

1. Al Franken was a comedy write who was basically playing the role of a left wing Rush Limbaugh.

2. Al Franken currently represents me in the Senate, and much to my surprise, has taken the job seriously — he appears to be one of the most knowledgeable, conscientious and intelligent senators. You may disagree with his politics, but he does his homework and is informed about the issues he’s voting on.

Unless he’s wearing the gun during yoga in a viscous attempt at comedic self parody, I’m not sure what this fruitcake behavior has to do with #1, and it has nothing to do with #2.

And a paranoia it was. He and I wrote back and forth a bit about politics, and I was continually amazed that this guy, growing up with liberal and aristocratic parents in Providence, R.I, and who lived in an expensive house in the best part of the city, came off as a backwoods yahoo. Where, I asked myself, was this coming from? The only thing I could figure was that it was a parent-child drama being played out in public. And when the cars got traded for the guns, it only seemed to confirm my thinking. So, might a survivalist web site conceivably be in his future? Still, you never know. After all, Jerry Rubin became a stock broker.

Farago grew up in a part of the country where you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday, where you have to buy a permit to have a garage sale – and collect sales tax, and where, if you have two garage sales in less than six months, you have to buy a commercial dealer’s license.

Maybe he is reacting against the extreme control of where he was bought up? Permits to have garage sale and CDL for two in a month? I thought some parts of Europe were over regulated but that is ridiculous.

Lots of religions have this problem, too, though, and the extremists keep me away from both churches and shooting ranges. I don’t have a problem with either, since I grew up with both but I’m not drawn in a personal way to either. But when these people go on the MSM and scream about how I’m supposed to live like them or else, well let’s just say that I don’t want to associate myself with that sort of bullshittery.

I don’t have any problem with the rural tradition of hunting and gun ownership, but we do need to do some sensible things about gun regulations because not everyone who buys a gun is going to use it sensible way. Fargo’s photos show him using his guns in a way that is very contrary to the way I was taught to use and respect guns, so I’d expect that sensible gun regulations would inconvenience him – fine, whatever. And we also need to do some things about mental health care, because getting the guns always happens near the end of the tragic saga that leads to a mass murder/suicide – it would be much better to get those people to a psychiatrist or an institution earlier in that process – and we’d probably cure homelessness and some other problems as a side effect.

I can’t speak to what’s in Farago’s mind, but the connection between individual liberty and armed self-defense was central to the creation of Texas. Basically, the threat isn’t that evil government will directly try to kill you, but that incompetent government will fail to protect you from the bad guys. Politically correct incompetent government is even worse.

Rev. William P. Smith addressing Texans before the Battle of Gonzalez: “To cap the climax of a long catalogue on injuries and grievances attempted to be heaped upon us, the government of Mexico, in the person of Santa Anna, has sent an army to commence the disarming system. Give up the cannon, and we may surrender our small arms also, and at once to be the vassals of the most imbecile and unstable government on earth…” from http://www.comeandtakeit.com/txhist.html

Separate from the basic “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away” self-defense issue, some gun owners seem to go overboard with the quantity of guns. I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that most of these “gun nuts” are simply people who like to collect guns. Other people like to collect antique cars, vintage guitars, art, or rare coins. Nobody needs their collection of these objects, but if the objects are well built and have limited supply, the hobby can pay for itself with appreciating prices.

Robert Farago is a brilliant writer who happens to land in the right place at the right time. he moved on from giving us the truth about GM’s march to bk in Death Watch, to loading another site providing informational ammunition for an increasingly contentious topic. no question the guy is a shooting star.

Roberts’s got a good sense of picking his topics, a finger on the pulse of what people are going to be talking about. Based on the number of TTAC alumni who have gone on to writing for Car & Driver, Autoweek and other publications, he’s also a pretty good judge of writing, but on that topic I can’t be impartial since he was one of the people who encouraged me to write about car.

He’s a character for sure, and not always the easiest person to get along with or work for, but it’s hard work making a web site a success in terms of traffic or in terms of money. Farago seems to have been able to do both of those things twice and deserves credit for that outside of his ranking as a writer and editor. He’s also an example of someone successfully transitioning from old media to new.

Regardless of what Selim Bingol said to Bertel and Ed, comparing TTAC to terrorists, the site is read in Dearborn, Auburn Hills and even the RenCen. The site is influential and Farago laid the foundation of that influence.

Lol, yeah there was another group who probably didn’t feel quite as safe with the German gun laws but I’m sure humans are much more enlightened now.

The real issue is not “left/right” but rather the other axis of the political continuum which is “authoritarian/libertarian”. You either believe people should have the power or that the government should have it instead (obviously to varying degrees).

The problem with all the recent gun debate tripe is that it’s just knee-jerk reactionary garbage.
No policymakers have seriously Analyzed the situation and asked “why/how would this legislation Have prevented this event” or “would enforcement of existing laws have the same effect” or a myriad of other serious scientific evaluation.

Instead it’s just “let’s increase the power and scope of a (broke) federal government”. Nevermind that locations which have enacted these types of laws on a state/local level often see increased violence.
It’s the equivalent of having a 25 mph speed limit with kids constantly hooning it up and speeding by at 60 mph and the response is to pass a law and lower the speed limit to 15.

I don’t know shit about Farago, he does comes off as a newbie gun owner and over zealous , but some of us are sick and tired of having a new law being the response to everything these days.
The reason the news loves stories like this is that it represents a viewpoint they’re happy to promote “paranoid goofball does yoga with gun strapped on his hip ” and attention whore gun owners (usually but not always noobs) feed right into it. Frankly as a responsible owner of all kinds of firearms, a CCW permit holder and active 3-gun competitor, it makes me cringe that this is the public face the newspaper picks but if you ask me I’ll come down on the side of individual liberty ever single time.

They are law abiding right up to the moment they break the law.
For me it comes down to hunting weapons, and defense weapons. I will defend the right of others to own hunting weapons, but not guns that make it easy to kill multiple people.

I live in Canada where it’s about as equally difficult/easy to get an AR-15 as it is in Connecticut and several other States. While shootings still do occur here, but with less frequency per capita. There are so many issues that need to be addressed aside from the tools of the deed.

I instruct people at our local tracks who want to learn how to drive their high performance cars in a track setting without speed limits.

There can be huge disconnects between self perception and reality. A person can think they are driving well when I can’t wait to get out on fear of my life. They may not recognize my tiny corrections of the steering wheel are saving us from fiery death. They can be living a race car driver fantasy ginned up by a video game or a movie character.

I don’t trust self identified gun carriers because I don’t trust human self perception, or competence of action. A self identified and self selected public vigilante is far more hazardous to me in my opinion than a potential criminal. Just as a self selected race car driver is more hazardous than the one whose skill is recognized by the expertise of the experienced.

How many guns do you need to own before you don’t feel ashamed to fantasize about saving the world with your little blue steel putz? At least Farago understands that bazookas and flame throwers aren’t protected by the Second Amendment. The WaPo article didn’t make clear that the political wedge today is used to separate hunters and target shooters from the paranoid wankers.

mitchw, Farago isn’t the only American who owns 18 or more guns. They’re a better investment than anything else out there. That’s why Gun Shows are so popular. People buy. People sell. People trade. The camaraderie is special and you can ask what the market will bear if you have something worthwhile to sell or trade.

I know of a man who sold a duly licensed Streetsweeper for $3000, quite a return on an investment of $500, decades earlier. Others I know have sold stock AR15s for well over $2K. Not bad if they only spent $689 for it, new. The demand is out there. There’s money to be made.

So what most of us do is pick up the weapons we’re especially fond of, and keep those as our core collection. Everything else is available for sale or trade (long guns, scatter guns, revolvers, pistols, assault weapons, CCW, whatever).

None of us can do anything about the nut jobs or criminals intent on laying their hands on a gun and killing people with it, but I’d rather go down fighting with a gun in my hand.

Yes, I’m licensed to carry concealed since 1985, and I also have a FFL3. A lot of decent people are not paranoid, just because they own guns.

There are plenty of examples where an ordinary citizen carrying concealed saved the day. You don’t have to go looking. It’ll find you. Like the Boy Scout Motto, it’s better to “Be Prepared”.

I don’t miss Farago one bit, but I can give him credit for creating a forum where idiotic commenting like like you find on You Tube is not permitted. But he was a censor; he deleted or edited comment he did not like even if it fit the guidelines. I consider myself a polite commenter, yet it was not uncommon to find my comments edited. Under new management the only editing I found was the deletion of how to destroy red light camera equipment.

As for the gun issue, maybe this will bring to light another major problem – massively funded special interest groups. I don’t have an issue with responsible gun ownership, but the NRA is a classic example of a special interest group that has way too much power. Politicians are more concerned with getting a good letter grade with the NRA than they are with promoting proper, fair policy. They are, in essence, political terrorists. And the NRA is not the only lobby group that has way overstepped its boundaries. It is sad that our Supreme Court has allowed unlimited funding to flow…look at what was spent in the last presidential election….

The NRA has 4.4 million individual members, second only to the AARP. When almost 1.5% of the population chooses to spend money (dues) to join an organization it is not a “special interest” it is a constituency. The “Mayors Against Gun Illegal Guns” is entirely funded by a single megalomaniac from New York.

If you think 4.5 million households are a special interest (especially compared the membership numbers on the other side of the debate) then your elementary school math teachers did not do a very good job.

My kids wanted to take up target shooting, so I went to the local sportsman show to see what was available. The reps for the local branch of the governing body came across as total foaming mouth fanatics. We had to meet their standard for loyalty or some such nonsense. It was clear I was either with them politically or “agin” them – no in between allowed. I walked away disappointed, and disheartened. I remember previous generations who took pride in being a good shoot without being intimidating, boastful, or disrespectful. I wonder how many more families turned away when confronted like that.
:-(

I don’t know your kids’ ages, but anyone over 18 can avail themselves of the finest, sanest and friendliest people in the shooting world by checking out your local tech school’s civilian firearm training courses.

These combined are the best alternative to sweeping new gun-regulations, and unfortunately the way the dominos fall in the US political system if you are a politically active gun-enthusiast you are by default against the above three things.

Pig_Iron, the Appleseed Project is a group of volunteers that do just what you’re looking for. Please check out their website at appleseedinfo.org to find the nearest event. They don’t talk politics, they’re expert shots and excellent teachers, and they are donating their time because they want to help others.

Frm a non-gun toting non-nut, who does own a variety of guns, each with a particular purpose, I don’t know where you went or who you met, but the gun owners and dealers that I have met have been with few exceptions, very polite, serious individuals. I imagine having 20 or so other gun owners with loaded weapons around you at a shooting range will tend to keep a eprson in line thuogh. Factor in that 99% of those gun owners have a healthy respect for what a gun can do (many being current or ex military and police even 1st hand knowledge of what a gun can do) means that they are very serious about gun safety. They will get a newbie gun owner in line real fast.

Comments like, “‘You’re afraid of law-abiding citizens that had to pass background checks?’

They usually are right until they go on a shooting spree.” Advance 92
and, “What is a law-abiding citizen? Is that the same thing as a unicorn or a Wolpertinger? :-)” Die Waldo

Show a serious lack of knowledge and do nothing to advance any type of serious discussion regarding gun ownership.

I equally dislike the seemingly compulsive bashing of labor unions that seems to pop up like measles in this thread and numerous others on this site. Regrettably, my understanding is that much of it is paid for in cash, by the post, by the benefactors of anti-union political organizations.

I guess being a car fan is like a sports fan: It’s something we do as a diversion from reality, only to find too often it’s merely a microcosm of it.

I’m a Canadian. My Dad and my brother were both military and avid hunters. I was brought up around fire arms, taught to use them. I cleaned them, then cleaned them again, and oiled them. I took them apart and reassembled them.

I was also taught to respect them.

I didn’t grow up with any interest what so ever in fire arms, or hunting. Cars were always my passion.

I’m neutral in the gun debate. After all, we are in Canada with tough gun controls.Though strangly enough, people still get shot. That fact has me baffled.

As far as Robert Farago goes? …..”IF” I was on the pro gun side, I can’t think of anybody else I’d rather have than RF debating my position.

Oh yes!.. RF and I never had too much common ground . I don’t know how, I managed to dodge the “ban button” in the early years. However I came away with a great deal of respect for the dude.

I much prefer reading,to writing. Robert Farago is a great writer, his passion alone makes for a great read,no matter what the subject.

One 30 minute stint at his new website reading commentaries was about all I could take. I certainly hope his commentators are not indicative of a large portion of gun owners out there because to my mind it was chilling.
I had no idea just how much of a fetish guns are for some, how much they are objects of worship, and I had no idea how irrational their outlook on reality actually is. It seems they expect that whatever sort of personal disaster they may encounter in their lives, somehow this will all be remedied by simply having, or brandishing and/or using a bullet discharging lethal weapon.
Incomprehensible, and to my mind, just plain sick.
I want to live in a civil society, not a lethally armed anarchy in a state of continual low grade law of the jungle warfare.
Unfortunately, with tens of thousands of gun deaths every year, this is to some degree what we already have in place currently.

The NRA rhetoric lays out the choice pretty much as ttacgreg describes it. At least that’s how it looks from outside of their bubble.

Real gun ownership is, of course, very different than the gun-nut rhetoric. It’s serious business, small safety fails are a big deal. As it should be, in any potentially lethal situation. And let’s not forget that after a successful hunting trip, you’ve killed a beautiful and respected animal, so you’d best take that seriously and make sure the animal is respected and put to good use. At least that’s what MY father taught me.

I don’t see any of the lessons my father taught me in Fargo’s Glock-pushups. Or in the NRA’s rhetoric. I honestly don’t think either one of then is responsible enough to have a gun – at least my father would have refused to hand ME a gun after those kind of antics.

What we have in place currently is, in the US, a country that is getting SAFER. Much safer over the last 20 years.

Even in Chicago, the homicide rate is down by half.

Did you know that the rate of gun crimes committed by law abiding citizens with no previous record has dropped by about 2/3?

Did you know that the same rate for those who already have records of gun crimes has gone up?

How about breaking out the number of suicides, deaths in gang/drug related violence, in committing crimes, etc. from your ‘tens of thousands’ figure?

The US has pockets of severe gun crime that statistically affect the entire country. There are many cities and counties that are as safe, or safer, than the idealized “gun free LOL” utopias of Europe and elsewhere.

The majority of gun crime in the US happens in large cities, the majority of gun Ownership (known legal gun-ownership) happens in rural and small-town areas.

That’s the real divide here, between people who’ve lived with guns close at hand (and at everyone else’s hands) all their lives without incident and people who’ve never personally touched a gun but know everything they know about them from movies, TV, and video games.

(actually, a whole lot of unresolved and unacknowledged political tension in the US arises from the Rural/Urban divide, particularly the feeling most on the Rural side seem to have.. not without some degree of justification.. that they are being imposed upon unfairly by the interests of the Urban.)

Very good point @Les, I have noticed the same thinking can be applied to gun crimes and death rates. By far most gun crimes and deaths happen in urban areas, and even then, just some parts of urban areas.

You know, I don’t think that is a good analogy really. With car guys and car buyers, I personally see that maybe 10% of the people I know or meet are really car fanatics, commenting on sites like this, following the business like we do, etc. Definitely we are not the norm. Ditto for fantasy game aficionados, computer nerds, archery fans, etc, any interest beyond traditional pro sports doesn’t attract a big percentage of the population into fanaticism.

But with guns, its definitely different. Around half the people I know and interact with on a daily basis are complete gun fanatics. From all economic levels, all walks of life, internet acquaintances, long time friends, family members, coworkers, clients, etc. Some of the smartest and well educated people I know completely buy into some of the most ridiculous pro-gun propaganda, some of the poorest and least educated people spend ungodly sums of money acquiring weapons and ammo, guns are by and large right there with sports in importance to the average American. They brag about it, are very vocally proud of it and, unlike any other controversial topic such as politics or religion, they are very likely to get into heated debates about their rights to own weapons and disdain for Obama (and pretty much any Democratic politician) trying to take them away… warranted or not.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the extreme right wing gun fanatics are just a small percentage of the population. Way more people believe the paranoia and rhetoric than you think. Guns are going to split this country in two just like politics have done, a full 50% will be right behind LaPierre, and the other half will want almost all guns eradicated from US soil.

@ 01 ZX3 Your right… One of the folks down the street had a little gathering of neighbors last summer. Not all of us knew each other. So I guy comes up to me..”oh, your the guy in the red brick house, that washes his cars all the time” I confess “I’m the one. “So why do you wash it under the hood”?… says the dude. “Well I detail the engine compartment because I like the look”,says I. He asks,”do you do that to all your cars, even you Cobalt?….yeah I do.

A lot of folks don’t like anybody doing, or having something, that dosn’t fit into thier idea of whats correct. Be it big honking Yukon with a lift kit, a Snowmobile,or an ATV.

I like to keep my lawn nice. But no, those that know whats best for me along with thier powerfull lobbyist,have managed to ban weed killer and pesticides. Even though such products were legal and went through extnesive testing.

I’m not crazy about Pit Bulls. I’ll never have one. In Ontario they have banned Pit Bulls. IMHO thats wrong.

it seems more and more, that in order to justify owning a gun, some of these owners convince themselves that some ‘evil’ of some sort will come bursting through their front door guns blazing. what the hell? why don’t non-gun owners feel this way?

i am all for responsible gun ownership. i’ve handled firearms myself and it’s an enjoyable experience when done properly. but this business where people walk around every waking moment with a loaded sidearm on their person does make them look a little bit outrageous in the 21st century. i think all that time spent unloading clip after clip into inanimate targets creates a desire to fight something that doesn’t exist.

i also agree that this is the wrong place to discuss guns and that although Farago does have a legacy here, it isn’t Farago’s TTAC anymore. we’ve moved away from him to a more casual, enthusiast-oriented community. that’s a good thing.

Think about it, three you are as a law-abiding gun-owner, you’ve lived around guns your whole life and nothing untoward happened to anyone you knew of as a result. Now here come these outsiders, demanding that all of a sudden you need to Justify yourself for doing something.. owning a firearm.. that you’ve just taken for granted just as your father had, and his father, and his father, and etc.. etc.. etc..

It was only a matter of time before some started drinking their own kool-aid, especially as we near the next generational shift and the ‘that’ll shut the gun-grabbers up’ crowd dies-out leaving more and more ‘true-believers’.

Gun-nuts do need to justify themselves. And worse they’ve chosen themselves to speak for all gun owners.

Christianity has the same problem. Many churches are genuinely open and inclusive. But several vocal ones require members require right-wing politics, hating gay people, and a weekly trip to chick-fil-a. By dominating the discussion with an extremist viewpoint, they are likely keeping a lot of moderate people from finding a moderate church.

And so it is with gun ownership, too. I’m a moderate in terms of gun issues, but there’s NFW I want to spend an afternoon with a gun-nut, even if they are happen to be minority at my local shooting range. The gun-nuts in my family who try to push it on Facebook compound the problem. I want nothing to do with any of this, despite having done enough shooting to be able to sight in a rifle and do some other basic tasks that I feel demonstrate basic competence with firearms. But I’m not going to deal with the crazies Just to refine modestly worthwhile skill that I’m unlikely to use in real life.

A few comments:
1. I had no personal issues with Farago when he ran TTAC. His writing was never one that swayed me toward or away from the site, and while I love this (virtual) place, I don’t have time to comment on most articles – I heard about him censoring posts but never had it happen.

2. I grew up around cars and guns (military brat), and own a few of both. While I can’t stand the politics surrounding the topic, I simply don’t understand people who argue that banning guns reduces crime. For an independently researched work on the subject, I recommend “More Guns, Less Crime”, by John Lott.

3. Having said that, the way Farago both writes and handles guns scares many people on both sides of the debate. Jokes aside, I hope that photo of him doing yoga with a gun is staged and the weapon is unloaded.

4. For a comprehensive overview of how Farago is viewed by gun bloggers, please look here: http://www.wallsofthecity.net/2012/10/the-truth-about-the-truth-about-guns-and-robert-farago.html. A good amount of it relates to activities similar to what upset people here at TTAC – editing and censoring of posts. Most of it is more distressing than that.

There are people who own firearms that find the writing of people like Robert Farago depressing. Good intentions or no, we need support like this like we need a hole in the head. You know, like the one you might end up with if you actually did yoga with a pistol on your hip!

This is as good a place as any to throw in an opinion on the gun toting Yoga master. Absolutely crazy. No sensible gun owner, or even what some would term “gun nut”, that I have ever owned would do something that patently stupid. Even if the gun is unloaded and it is just a photo-op, nobody I know would do something like that, as it sets a bad example for less knowledgeable/intelligent people.

I always liked RF. When he was at TTAC, the handful of times I wrote in with a complaint about a post he always replied back with something like “looks like you’re right, I’ll edit the post”.

I’ve made bunches of comments on TTAC over the years and never once had one edited/deleted, so I never really understood the whole “RF is a censoring dictator!” criticism against him.

That said, TTAG is a huge echo-chamber and it isn’t a very beginner-friendly place to comment. It’s also gone heavy into politics (which is what happened at TTAC near the end of his stint too). I get that cars and guns are often political topics, but some balance would be nice.

I do wonder how he made all his money though. Blogging can’t be that well-paid a gig and he owned a Ferrari before he stared TTAC. The article only says “good investments”.

The old fashioned way. Inherited! Museum at Rhode Island School of Design has his mother’s name on it, as she was its benefactor. Rich boy rebels against parents’ politics but seems willing to take their money. I’m pretty sure I’m right about this, having lived in Providence a while back for a good stretch. Those curious can google “Daphne Farago”.

I knew his family was fairly wealthy (he wrote a story about his father getting European delivery on a 300SEL 6.3), but still are they “here son go buy that Ferrari 550″ rich? He says his first car was a hand-me-down Pinto.

I know this isn’t the most polite topic to bring up, but the newspaper article does mention his personal financial situation and it has always been a point of mystery to me.

Describing the Washington Post as a “liberal paper” is just plain wrong. My wife and I have subscribed for nearly 20 years, and I find it more and more infuriating.

Having said that, Joel Achenbach is a fine writer who had exactly the right take on 9/11, in a Post column the very next morning:

“What we have here is an unfortunate fact of our planet: Its dominant species combines extreme cleverness with an unreliable morality and a persistent streak of insanity. Thus it has ever been; thus it shall ever be.

“One of the tropes of this tragedy is that ‘life will never be the same again.’ But nothing has changed at all. Human nature is immutable. People have been using every bit of their ingenuity to kill one another since the dawn of time.”

(I found the whole column at http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/healingresponses1.html#16; it’s misdated there as 9/14/01.)

The question raised by Achenbach’s article, as I see it, is whether paranoids get to set the rules for the rest of us.

The paranoids have set the rules.
There are thousands of nuclear warheads around the planet.
An intelligent species figures out how to make nuclear weapons.
A stupendously idiotic species mass produces them.
Ultimately our rationality is the subservient assistant to our irrational emotions.

Insecurity, paranoia, and fear most definitely shows itself in many pro-gun arguments.

Self reflecting here, gun proponents the likes of Ted Nugent, Mr. Lapierre and Alex Jones make me insecure, paranoid, and fearful. It is their mentalities first, their guns second.

Finally, thanks to all on this thread for such level headed, respectful, and for me at least, informative contributions.

“I felt grown up. It was like a coming-of-age thing. I felt like an adult.”

Wow, I’ve never seen an article about gun ownership get the the point so quickly! At least he was honest about his motivations.

BTW, when did the Washington Post become a “liberal paper?” Has our society become so bipolar that everything has to fit into liberal or conservative categories, or is everything to the left of Fox News considered liberal these days?

It’s the A-holes of the world that want gun control… Think of how much nicer we’d be forced to treat each other if we were to issue a gun to anyone and everyone that feels they need or want a gun and of course feels responsible (and old) enough to carry.

Once we adapt to the few extra suicides, mishaps and anger related shootings, the world would be a much safer And better place. Politicians would have to watch their back though…

If it gives Farago a sense of whatever, then whatever. I think he’s just posturing for the WP, but whatever, it’s his life. He’s also a political/public figure and it’s probably not hard to figure out where he lives, but again, whatever.

I have to agree. I learned how to shoot a gun at the age of 11. My father taught me how to responsibly own one. Like millions of others, I’ve never had the desire to kill a person. If you read stats, you’ll dsiscover that the South has one ofthe lowest crime rate of any region in the US despite the high population. Could it be because more people own guns in the South? Australia’s violent crime rate tripled within the first two years after they stopped private ownership of guns. The lesson here: Bad people will get them whether they are leagl or not.

“Think of how much nicer we’d be forced to treat each other if we were to issue a gun to anyone and everyone that feels they need or want a gun and of course feels responsible (and old) enough to carry.”

That is one of the central premises of the future society in Robert Heinlein’s early novel “Beyond This Horizon.” (SF writer David Brin calls it a “prescriptive utopia” and writes about it at http://torforge.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/whats-your-favorite-heinlein-novel-david-brin.)

“… Think of how much nicer we’d be forced to treat each other if we were to issue a gun to anyone and everyone that feels they need or want a gun and of course feels responsible (and old) enough to carry.”

You might want to take a trip to Somalia, the Congo, or Afghanistan and see how the widespread availability of guns is working out for the folks who live in those countries. Not so well, I think – the notion that “an armed society is a polite society” is just nonsense.

A good example is the American West – we have this notion from Hollywood movies that folks walked around armed all the time. In reality, towns, particularly those that were the destinations of cattle drives, typically had strict gun control by today’s standards, requiring visitors to have their guns locked up by the authorities for the duration of their stay. For example, the gunfight at the OK corral had as it’s most immediate cause the enforcement of an ordinance forbidding the carrying of a deadly weapon in city limits.

That being said, guns are tools, and they have a purpose. Folks like Farago take an overly generous view of how much people need them, largely due to their belief that gun ownership prevents political tyranny.

“You might want to take a trip to Somalia, the Congo, or Afghanistan…”

That’s quite a slippery slope you got there Mark. Yeah, we’re just ever so close to being taken over by warlords. Yeah sure.

My life wouldn’t change one bit if everyone around me became armed. I might get a gun too or I might not. But then I treat everyone around me with respect and have absolutely no fear. What or who are YOU afraid of???

YOU hear a report like “Man holds homeowners at gun point…”, and YOU move on. What I hear is “Man holds UNARMED homeowners at gun point…”.

“That’s quite a slippery slope you got there Mark. Yeah, we’re just ever so close to being taken over by warlords. Yeah sure.”
Detroit and South Central LA are pretty close to Somalia now. Detroit is a very scarey place. South Central LA is not a place you want to hang around in. I guess there are other places in the US people know of.
There are plenty of places around the world where it is nice and peaceful and there is no guns.

“Detroit and South Central LA are pretty close to Somalia now. Detroit is a very scarey place. South Central LA is not a place you want to hang around in. I guess there are other places in the US people know of.”

Every place in the world has its version of a slum and sure some are worse than others, but being unarmed and helpless in these places just makes you a sitting duck. Still, if you’d rather hang around at night in the best part of Somalia over the worst part of Detroit, I’ll pay the tickets…

“There are plenty of places around the world where it is nice and peaceful and there is no guns.”

Right, and once the criminal element has guns or all the guns (except for police), there’s no turning back and you need a equalizer. If they have slingshots, you’d better have at least a good slingshot.

The US isn’t an island where you can successfully confiscate all guns. It’ll never happen and again, there’s no turning back. The places I camp have bobcat populations, so take a guess whether I’m armed? You have to protect yourself or ???.

“You might want to take a trip to Somalia, the Congo, or Afghanistan and see how the widespread availability of guns is working out for the folks who live in those countries.”

You might want to look at some facts before you give your opinion as though it is fact. Somalia has the highest gun ownership of those three countries, 66th in the world per capita. Afghanistan is #106, and depending on which Congo you mean either #122 or #137. All of those countries have very strict gun laws that have been highly successful in keeping guns out of the hands of the common person, but much less successful in keeping guns out of the hands of thugs and killers. Thanks for making a good argument for gun ownership and against “gun control” laws.

I have to add my two cents. RF would alternately infuriate and humor me in the same day. Zealotry in any form is abhorrent to me, as I come from Canadian prairie folk, but was born in the US. I suspect RF is the only one in on his own “joke”.

To call the Washington Post liberal is laughable. Much like Obama – who, in terms of policy, is a Nixonian republican (without the paranoia and other “issues”) . The political shift to the right is so extreme that they appear liberal with very few liberal ideas ever expressed. The post is considered very conservative by anyone who cares.

Regarding Farago – I remember cracking wise in a post – not political just a guy joke – and i got 2 very aggressive emails from “his spokesman” regarding threats and other such things. I was totally stunned. I asked what was construed as a threat but no reply was forthcoming.

The inability to parse language in a symbolic manner, and the constant reification of abstractions, seems to be the marker of the paranoid right. This is not the case with old time conservatives – I remember when Dole ran for president – I wouldn’t have voted for him but I loved his sardonic humor.

In germany a “liberal paper” might be a libertarian paper, a democratic paper or even a conservative paper depending on issue if we where to translate to american terms. The american liberal/conservative scale doesn’t translate well to anywhere outside of the US.

True,
You have “Blue Collar” Parties with members who are very religious and conservative as well as remnants of the “Socialist Left”. On the other hand Pro- Business Parties can have very liberal attitudes to abortion etc.

Here in Australia the Liberal Party is the conservative,pro-business party. Of course American politics has moved so far to the crazy right these days that even Reagan would be treated as a “Hollywood Liberal” by many conservatives if he was still actually president!

I like how it starts out that he has (at least) 18 guns! “Oh my! He’s lost his marbles!”

Really, 18 is nothing, especially when one can only shoot one at a time. There are a lot of calibers to chose from. Then you have old guns; really old guns (the type you hang on the wall in a den or at a cabin); new guns; lots of variety of handguns from revolvers to semi-autos; rifles from pump-action, bolt-action, lever-action to semi-auto sporting rifles; then throw in some black powder muzzleloaders and different varieties of shotguns. So as I said, 18 is nothing. Twice a year a friend of mine invites friends and co-workers over for an all day “shooting fest” on hunting property he owns. There can easily be 100 guns to try out when the safes are opened. (No it’s not a bunch of rednecks… One out of every two attendees has a doctorate). The real issue to having 18 guns is keeping a decent supply of ammo that covers them all.

Anyway, I liked Fargo even though one time he asked me to stop bashing Barry (i.e. our expert skeet shooting President).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BCJc0WZCUAAFFH4.jpg

No. Most people, even people who know nothing about cars, understand that mechanics need tools, lots of them are specific tools that cannot be done with another tool or socket or whatever. You don’t NEED 18 different types of guns to target shoot, or protect your home, or even hunt. A much better analogy is to the guy who owns 5-10 cars, or more. Why would you want so many cars, insurance, maintenance, etc, you can only drive one at a time, etc, etc. Similar mindsets and similar reactions from the public. But cars don’t scare people, guns do, so it gets more attention.

But it isn’t the 18 guns, or even the 500 guns, or any number in between that gets them labeled as a crazy paranoid man’s arsenal. It is all in how it is delivered, the speech and actions that go along with owning them. I am willing to bet those judges with the 500 gun collections don’t rant on about how they need to carry a weapon at all times, how they need to stockpile ammo for when the government outlaws it, etc.

No, it illustrates the amount of poorly made guns available in america (I know guns are more of a mass market product in the US and I truly respect John Moses Browning enginering). If one had 500 truly collectible guns, well, props to them. If they have a bunch of mini 14, late model rattling mossbergs and bunch of low quality AR-15 clones they might be a nut at 18. If you stockpile ammo and harbor dreams about shooting somebody in some suburban version of Die Hard, well then you’re a nut at one gun.

Those of us really passionate about one or the other can see many parrallels.

We both like to take our items out to specialized locations to really test their performance and our skills. (Gun-Ranges, Track-Days.)

We like having them around for their utility. (Commuting, grocery-run; hunting, home-defense.)

But more than that, we also appreciate them for their aesthetics. Their heritage and craftsmanship, and their design and engineering. (and pulling open your gun to examine the fiddly bits is a lot less messy and labor-intensive than doing so to your car. ;)

There are some things about the Automotive industry I’d wish would be emulated in the Firearms industry. For example, safety systems like the firing-pin interrupt, these should be at least as ubiquitous today as seat-belts on cars.. but we don’t see things like that because those who want to regulate guns keep pushing a ‘the only safe gun is one that doesn’t exist’ policy.

Of course turned the other way around there are some things about the firearms industry I wish I could see emulated in the automotive industry.. like the tendency for once a company has wrung-out the usefulness of a particular highly popular model that then everyone and their dog starts manufacturing their own slightly-improved versions. (What’s good for the 1911 Colt is good for the 1966 Mustang. ;D)

I don’t want any traffic or vehicle regulations.
Cars don’t kill people, people do!
Yes that is silly, but so is the NRA analogy.

Why do we need assault weapons available with multi-shot changeable magazines?
If you are a hunter and don’t get the job done after 3 shots, call it a miss. It’s called a sport, not a slaughter.

Oh, so you say the multi-shot is a competition category at the range. I bet if you could buy rocket launchers they would create a competition category for that.

I would like to see all weapons have a maximum of 3 shots and require manual loading. Having a maximum of 3 shots for hunting weapons should satisfy the 2nd amendment, protect hunting, and allow competitive target shooting. Pistols should fall under the same guidelines.

So you say that only the bad guys will have all these extreme assault weapons.
End production and sales. Make the fines for ownership high and progressive. Offer buy backs to those presently with these weapons. Offer buy backs to the guy on the street. All the low level crack heads will sell their weapons. The remaining illegal weapons will become so expensive that the common street thugs could not afford them.

Eliminate ammunition that is designed for other purposes than sport hunting.

Purchase of a weapon should require licensing. To accomplish that you should have classroom time, range time, psychological evaluation, and pass an examination. It should not be easy.

So you say that multi-shot competitions should no longer be allowed because those kinds of people would use rocket launchers if you let them? Making projections about gun owners isn’t much of an argument.

The idea of making a firearms limited to 3 three shot doesn’t have much merit either. If your hunting game that could be considered dangerous, its far better bet to have more than 3 rounds, and in the case of large predator defense, you definitely want more than 3 rounds. The same could be said for firearms for self defense against criminals, if your faced with more than one attacker, or an attacker on PCP, you’re going to want more than 3 shots, regardless if the criminals where armed or not.

Trying to reduce the supply of firearms, if it where economically feasible, through bans, confiscations and buybacks doesn’t have great track record in reducing gun violence in American cities. Even if the firearms supply could be reduced, it wouldn’t affect violent crime rates. Criminals would turn to other tools to use, like knives and bats, and I doubt most citizens would want to try to defend themselves and their families with the same. I also doubt crackheads would comply,since they tend to make up a sizable number of violence victims. Why would they turn in their most effective tool for self-defense from other crackheads?

Of course,for most honest people, the odds of being attacked by a dangerous animal or criminal are pretty low, if it saves just one life, I see a need for having firearms, or “assault weapons” as you’ve labeled them, with more than a 3 round capacity.

Most illuminating moment in the article: Farago spends most of the article talking about the sanctity of absolute rights and protecting himself from imaginary assailants, but when the reporter brings up the thousands of people who are in fact killed by guns every year, his responce is almost literally “meh, they are grist for the freedom mill.”

I’m not, hand on heart, trying to provoke anyone here. Gun control is a complex issue, and if you are on the pro-gun side, I bet there is stuff we agree on. But Farago’s view on guns and his relationship with them – the constant paranoia and fear, the obsession with being prepared for incredibly unlikely scenarios – it comes off as some sort of metal illness.

From reading the article, Farago’s zeal comes off as the zeal of the newly converted. Perhaps time and experience will get him to dial it back a notch, perhaps not. If I had to guess, I would not expect it wear off, coming to the gun scene later in life as he has.

Either way, I’d still feel better pulling him over on a rural back road late one night than I would a random person without a conceal carry permit that I could verify quickly on the old MDC. Self- identified “gun nuts” with carry permits, even those with libertarian views that I personally find whacky, don’t frighten me as a police.

Some of it is a genuine cultural difference. In Kentucky we’re all gun nuts, more or less. We don’t require registration of any kind here, but if we use checks of the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System as a proxy, in 2012 gun dealers in KY loggged over 2 million background checks, beating out every other state in the union. That’s a lot of guns in a state with a population under 5 million. Yet, somehow, the streets don’t run red with blood.

I don’t find Farago’s actions described in the story particularly nutty, actually. Doing yoga with a mid- size Glock on your hip is a little silly, but that’s mostly because I imagine it would be uncomfortable. As for the idea of being armed even while in your own home, well, if that’s nuts then I’m nuts. As I type this on a snowy January morning at my dining room table, there’s a 9mm Kel- Tec PF9 in the pocket of my sweat pants. I’ve got a two- story house and my duty weapons are upstairs. If some wierdo comes to the door, I’ve got heat.

Strange to many of you, I know, but I’ve also got a “Hey, look! It’s the police!” Crown Victoria parked out front. Over the years I’ve had people think that it’s perfectly okay to stop and ask me for assistance at all hours of the night because of the G-ride in the driveway. (It happened a lot more when I had a marked unit and lived in the jurisdiction where I worked, but it did happen.)

As for going about armed whenever he does leave the house,well again, I do that. And it’s not just because I’m a cop and I’m supposed to be on- duty 24/7 or any nonsense like that. I don’t live in my jurisdiction. If I see something going sideways while I’m at the grocery store, I’ve got no legal responsibility or authority to take action. And, for the record, I won’t unless or until I or one of my family members is directly threatened. Some guy wants to start giving his wife or his girlfriend an unholy beat down in the Wal- mart parking lot, he can just rock on until my local pd gets there. That’s what my cellphone is for. If he sees me witnessing and turns on me and mine, then it gets handled. Until then, for anything short of a criminal action for which the use of deadly force is legally authorized in response you will not know that I (and my gun) was even there.

I suspect that Farago would respond in a similar manner. He seems to understand that carrying a weapon is not a responsibility to be undertaken lightly. I don’t see him as particularly paranoid, with the bank alarm and the potential for a hostage situation at Starbucks. I seem him as being situationally aware. Bad things do happen. Not very often, but they do. I wish I had a dollar for every criminal complaint report I’ve taken over the years in which a person was victimized mostly because they were stupid and not paying attention to their surroundings.

Part of developing situational awareness is gaming out the various “what- ifs” that could happen. Just taking a second now to think about what you might do if something bad were to happen can give you that extra half second that could make the difference if a critical incident were to arise. It’s not pleasant to think about, but a lot of people have been killed or injured because when a bad situation hit, they vapor locked for critical seconds and were swept away by events.

If you don’t want to carry or own a gun, then don’t. If you do decide to carry or own a gun, take it seriously. It seems to me that Farrago is doing that and for that he should be commended.

Thank you David for taking the time to lay out a little common sense. Self-defense is rational. Surrendering the decision as to whether we live or die to someone else is something many of us choose not to do. The desire to survive and protect our loved ones is not “nuts,” regardless of what the smug sophisticates may say.

You think that a cop who walks around his own house with a loaded 9mm in the pocket of his sweatpants just in case some crazy person comes to his door is “common” sense?? This same cop won’t do anything if he sees a guy beating up a girl… And you praise that line of reasoning? It doesn’t take a smug sophisticate to know that is anything but common sense.

Sorry mnm, I should have included the naively indignant. In his example, he was off duty and out of his jurisdiction. In other words, he was a civilian. In that situation, he has no protection from civil or criminal liability beyond that of a civilian. So, he said he would call the police and stand by as a witness.

You would do more? Best of luck. Maybe you are That Guy, who rolls in and saves the day with your bare hands. If so, congratulations on your fantasy fulfillment. You will end up in court as a witness. You may spend several uncompensated days there. The girlfriend will probably lie and blame you. If he is a gang member, his associates will be there eyeballing you closely and listening to you describe your heroics. On the other hand, the police may believe the lies of the thug and his girlfriend and you may end up getting arrested yourself. Or, you will end up as the defendant in a civil lawsuit and it will cost you untold thousands and several years to prove your actions were warranted.

On the other hand, when you intervene, things may go differently. You may lose. You are just as likely to get the crap beat out of you by him (and have her turn on you too.) Or, you will end up getting stabbed or shot. So, anyone who stepped in may be sued, criminally prosecuted, seriously injured or killed. Unless you are an on-duty police officer charged by law with keeping the peace in that jurisdiction, common sense would tell you to call the police and stay out of the way. If a violent person is coming for you or your loved ones, you should have the choice to carry a gun to protect you and yours. Then the risks of a violent response to a violent action may be worth it and you will have the means available to accomplish it. Yes, I believe that is commons sense, if you understand the real world.

I agree with you mnm that some vocal gun advocates are nutty, but the right to protect your life and the lives of your loved ones is fundamental, and guns are essential for this purpose.

It must suck to go through life being so afraid of everything that you need a gun to make you feel safe in your own home or at a shopping mall. And to be so jaded by this fear that you can’t even see the logic in simply saying something, anything, to some chickensh!t wife beater who, in 99% of the cases, is just a grown up schoolyard bully. No, fortunately for our society, your sense is not common, not yet anyway.

If you live somewhere where carrying a gun at all times, ready to shoot someone or threaten someone who frightens you, is “essential” to protecting your family, then you owe it to your family to move.

And how do you carry a 9mm in a sweatpants pocket anyway?? I can’t even put my cell phone in my sweats pockets, it gets all twisted up, hangs wrong, bangs against my junk if I try to run, a gun is way heavier, it would pull them down on me.

Please don’t take offense at this, but I wouldn’t want to rely on the police for my protection, even less so after reading your post. If I need to wait for the local pd to respond to a violent even potentially deadly situation, I’m not going to survive it. At least with a gun, I have a chance. This is even more true for a smaller person than myself. I actually have intervened in situations like you described because I was not willing to stand by and watch a woman and her child get a “beat down”. Because I am a rather large and muscular person, the “man” found he was a lot less manly when challenged by someone bigger than himself. But what if I am confronted by a violent person who won’t back down either because he “knows” he can beat me, he is high on drugs, or is just plain crazy? A gun balances the equation for the law abiding citizen who owns one. With guns, might doesn’t always make right, and the bigger stronger person can’t impose his will on the weaker individual.

First, this is funny, so thanks for the laugh. “And how do you carry a 9mm in a sweatpants pocket anyway?? I can’t even put my cell phone in my sweats pockets, it gets all twisted up, hangs wrong, bangs against my junk if I try to run, a gun is way heavier, it would pull them down on me.”

As for the rest of your reply, all I can say is may you always live in and travel in a world where you never encounter these people. Our courts, prisons and jails are filled with them. They are not schoolyard bullies. Many of them are thugs and predators who have used violence their whole lives. Most of us peaceful folk would not stand a chance against them, no matter our self-image. They exist, as do their victims, in very large numbers. Perhaps it is better to ignore this, deny it, or move somewhere else and let the less fortunate who cannot afford to move to a safer place be the victims.

I live in a very nice peaceful little college town with a low overall crime rate and good schools for the kids. The police department reports an average of 30 residential burglaries a month, even here. Those are people who are breaking into people’s homes. It hasn’t happened to us yet, but it did in the place we moved from. We had an armed daylight takeover robbery of our local video store a couple of years ago at our local mall and an armed bank robbery last year, to give just a couple of examples. Criminals like cars too, just like TTAC denizens, and are mobile.

Many people just insist on giving themselves a chance to survive if the unthinkable occurs and to protect the ones they cherish, instead of leaving the decision in the hands of violent criminals, of which there is no shortage, regardless of your fortunate personal experience. People should be able to choose for themselves. The right to defend your life is inalienable.

We have crime, this is Florida, there are tons of crackheads, nut jobs, career criminals, mob, etc. The weather is nice, can’t blame them for wanting to be here. But we simply do not have enough crime that makes me feel like I need to be constantly armed, especially in my own home. I don’t ignore it, I just know that my chances are really really good that I will never experience anything like that. It would be like wearing a helmet in my car all the time, just in case I get t-boned by a semi at 80mph. I wear a seatbelt and I am careful, no need for extreme paranoia.

And for the most part, wife beaters ARE bullies, not violent thugs. And those extremely violent criminals you fear do NOT exist in large numbers, its actually a pretty small percentage of criminals and of our population as a whole. We live in a society that still values rules and laws, this isn’t some lawless outpost yet.

Statistics are great, but the vast majority of crime occurs in very particular parts of the cities, and the rest is so spread out that it hardly matters. Planning for these doomsday scenarios is futile, and it really goes against much of the logic set forth by the pro-gun lobby. I read a dozen times in this one post about how a person is statistically more likely to get killed in a car accident or a drowning accident or whatever than shot, they use that as the basic logic for not needing any gun control. So then why the need to carry guns all the time?? It is statistically unlikely that even a police officer will be shot or shoot his gun and they are at the front lines of all crime in a given area. Yet you fear crime so much that you honestly think you NEED a gun on you all the time? Maybe in Detroit, but in a small college town?? it doesn’t pass the common sense test, and that is what makes it come across as fear and paranoia. There is a significantly higher chance that you, being armed at all times, will have an accidental shooting, or escalate a bad situation into something much worse just because you pull out your gun. Your examples you mentioned… did anyone get shot or killed during them? If so, what makes you think you could have stopped that, as opposed to just getting more people shot? If not, what makes you think that by pulling out your gun you wouldn’t have caused people to then be shot in the crossfire? And what makes you think you could even do it? Most LE describe “gunfights” as paralyzing, and they at least get some training. It has been proven that the average person simply cannot cope rationally with the stress, which is why we get innocent people getting shot by paranoid people with guns. The risks simply outweigh the benefits by far.

I don’t have a problem with people owning guns, nor do I have a problem with them using guns to protect their home or themselves. I think it’s silly to carry a gun around all the time or to keep it in your pocket when you are home, and it will make you look like a paranoid gun nut to most other people, but whatever floats your boat, AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T AFFECT ME. And that is where we have a disconnect. I don’t trust most people’s ability to carry a weapon and know when to use it. You might be the most cool-headed, well trained guy in the world and you might be completely justified in carrying your weapon to the video store just in case it gets held up again. You might be Jonny Die Hard, and pick off violent criminals before they can hurt any innocent victims out there, while simply scaring off the dumb punks who think they are tough but are really just scared. But unfortunately the vast majority of people out there will NOT be as cool headed or well trained as you, will NOT be able to appropriately judge when to brandish a gun and when to shut the hell up, will NOT stay calm and use good judgement when pointing a gun at someone who frightens them. There are simply way too many people out there who have a gun fetish and get off on the idea of shooting someone they perceive as dangerous, or they get so scared in these situations that they pull out the gun in road rage, or when some punk kids start acting tough and they are afraid of getting punched, or when some poor homeless guy starts acting strange because hes off his meds, and innocent people get shot, or hell, even guilty people get shot where they might not have gotten shot in the first place. I hate dumb punk kids who think they are thugs, but I don’t think they should die over it. And like I said earlier, what if I was in that bank or the video store and just dealing with getting the guys out of there as fast as possible, when you pull out your gun and get tough. Maybe you feel safe, but now bullets are flying and I or my family is in danger because you think you are Billy Bad A$$.

I simply do not trust the average American to be walking around armed in public and trust that he or she will use that weapon safely. If we can figure out a way to ensure that those people are properly trained, or at least trained like military and LE, then that would be fine. If we can keep them away from crazies, and paranoid people, and the guys with inferiority complexes that need a gun to be tough, then fine. But since we cannot, then I say, keep your guns at home, or in your car. LE and military can be an exception if trained and certified, and I bet that would encourage a whole lot of people to serve their country in some capacity. You say it is your right to protect yourself, and that’s true, as long as it doesn’t infringe on my right to my own safety. Keep yourself safe at home and in your car, and I won’t go to your house or ride in your car if I don’t want to. In the highly unlikely event that you find yourself in an extreme situation, go to your car and get your gun. If you truly fear being in public that much, then stay home, and let the rest of us risk our lives going to the mall or the bank without fear of some guy with a gun getting us all shot by protecting himself.

Oh and I can’t wait to read the headline about the guy who shoots himself in the balls while running to the door with his gun in his sweatpants that got tangled up in his junk only to find that it was girl scouts selling cookies.

mnm, I think what you are describing comes primarily from your imagination, or from movies. Consider this description from the original post:

“Some of it is a genuine cultural difference. In Kentucky we’re all gun nuts, more or less. We don’t require registration of any kind here, but if we use checks of the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System as a proxy, in 2012 gun dealers in KY loggged over 2 million background checks, beating out every other state in the union. That’s a lot of guns in a state with a population under 5 million. Yet, somehow, the streets don’t run red with blood.”

People who carry are generally well aware of the consequences of display or use, as I described in my previous post. There are many states where concealed carry is common, and they have not experienced the problem you fear. The picture in your mind of hordes of deranged paranoids shooting innocents is unsupported by reality and the rules you prefer for gun possession are essentially arbitrary and based on emotion and personal preference, rather than the experience of states that have allowed it. You are wary of law-abiding people carrying guns and others are wary of criminals carrying guns. Which is the more rational concern?

Good point, though I tend to feel much more comfortable with guys from rural areas and states that have a lot of sportsmen/hunter types. My friends from KY/WV/MS/LA/GA/etc have a much better handle on the whole concept of proper gun usage than my “city” friends who did not grow up hunting with dad. I guess it is all perspective, because in FL we tend to have the worst combination of redneck/thug-wannabe/cop-wannabe types that concern me more than criminals. I am not wary of law abiding citizens over criminals, it’s the wackadoodles that worry me.

And I never imagined “hordes” of deranged paranoids shooting innocents any more than you imagine hoards of deranged criminals shooting at you. What I am talking about happens a lot around here, it happens much less in rural areas. I still feel safe, so it isn’t a big deal to me. But can you honestly say that you think everyone, anyone, is stable enough to carry? If so, then you have a lot more faith in the average American than I do.

And btw mnm, you are the one who has expressed an interest in getting involved in ongoing crimes, not me. I have supported the opposite approach. My examples were intended to illustrate that you cannot live somewhere where violent crime and dangerous criminals are are absent. Nor do most people restrict their movements to the town where they live.

mnm, I also strongly dislike and distrust bullies, swaggering yahoos, and personally insecure people who are attracted to firearms to fill the gap. However, people who are able to stay out of trouble and conduct themselves in a lawful manner have the fundamental right to preserve their lives. Restricting this right disarms the lawful while those who live their lives preying on others remain unrestrained. The biggest losers are the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable among us. Again, right to carry states have not seen the problem you describe actually manifest itself in a significant fashion and, in contrast, decent citizens enjoy the right to protect their lives.

I’m in Kentucky also and tend to forget how many of my friends and relatives carry guns. The hand guns are not out in the open. Most have gun safes now. Don’t get talked into helping move one. The only time it really comes to my attention is when someone gets a new one and is proud to show it to me, or when we come in and their jackets come off; sometimes there’s a gun and holster, sometimes not. Like fresh smoke detector batteries and seat belts, a gun is another responsibility they undertake to provide additional protection for their families should a situation arise where a gun would be helpful.

The fact that every single gun carrying person, that I am friends with, is more level-headed, professional, and family oriented than I am dispels any notion that the love of guns is a paranoid, low-brow activity. I also am not going to be hanging out with gangsters or those doing yoga with a gun attached. Like carbs and cams, they know upgrades, and the best bullet for whatever. This isn’t anything new. There has always been gun mags right next to the CandD, RandT since the I starting reading those in the 70’s.

As far as the number of guns go, I equate it with my cameras. Just because I have three digital ones now, and have sold a fourth, doesn’t mean I got rid of my 35mms and all the ones I had before. Something better came along that I wanted and could afford, and it got added to the collection. In fact, I bet ammunition would stockpile and keep better than film.

There will always be idiotic, obnoxious, loud-mouths with or without a guns. When armed they are worse, because you know they are just ignorant and scared and like to brandish it. That’s a bad combination.

But I think those opposed to guns would be surprised if they knew how many people they consider upstanding at a glance were carrying. Someday I may be extremely grateful that such a person was near me or someone I love and had one.

Many years ago I googled Farago, and discovered he was a self-taught American hypnotist living in England. Good at promotion, he authored self-help books and self-hypnosis tapes.

This article sums up Farago’s career at that point:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/4745713/Hypnosis-or-humbug.html

Just google “robert farago hynotist” and you’ll find hundreds of articles detailing what TTAC’s founder got up to prior to returning to the US and deciding to learn about cars and the industry.

Due to his flitting interests, I truly hope he becomes obsessed with something like The Truth About Pets. Because finding niches and exposing the rottenness of the alligator and python industry in America would suit his brand of social paranoia to a tee.

Well, at least now I understand better what politics are so intermingled with TTAC. I just see statements like the above as unnecessary. It really added nothing to the story, nothing to the context, and it is just inflammatory. “The liberal paper,” is subjective to the reader. A reader of Mother Jones might find the Washington Post rather to the right. A follower of brother John Birch might find NewsMax run by a bunch of pinko liberal commies.

“The liberal paper,” is opinion, not fact.

Ugh – I’ll stop – I just wish the political overtones would stop – every time I see it my skin crawls – and I really, REALLY, don’t want to be reading about the gun debate on TTAC. I come here to hide out from this stuff because it is E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. Please, for those of us who consider TTAC a refugee. Please put that into consideration.

This display of car enthusiasts taking potshots at gun enthusiasts, in a country with roughly 35,000 yearly deaths due to motor vehicle accidents is ironic and sad.

Something along the lines of “hang together or hang separately” comes to mind, because I’m fairly certain that the “gun safety” mob will turn into the “auto safety” version when they start looking for a new way to restrict individual freedoms.

What the heck though, it’s not like anyone >>needs<< engines larger than 150hp, and to drive faster than 55mph.

Considering that Robert Farago’s Jewish father survived a Nazi concentration camp before coming to America and building his own business, I think Farago has a better understanding of the need to own a gun than many commenters here.

And while guns are tools, they are also toys. Everybody on this site would love to be Jay Leno and have a thousand different cars, while most Americans would be content with a Camry. Guns are cheap enough he can have a decent collection.

And the 2nd Amendment is not about hunting or shooting paper targets. It’s about self-defense and not being a serf who can resist being sent on a cattle car to a concentration camp, not that it helped those Americans who were of Japanese decent 70 years ago…

No, actually the Second Amendment isn’t about defending yourself against the U.S. Government.

Much as you might hate to hear it, it’s about defending the U.S. Government against the King of England.

Histories of the discussions that led to the Second Amendment show the Founding Fathers were motivated mostly by their worry that a (not yet extant) military-industrial complex would develop in this country.

Their hope was that we’d be able to get by with the equivalent of a part-time National Guard as a sufficient deterrent to foreign invaders such as England. That’s the “well-regulated militia” the amendment says is essential to “a free state,” their explanation for why citizens should have access to a musket (semi-automatics not being extant at that time, either).

If more Americans knew this, we’d hear a lot less breast-beating patriotic nonsense from the owners of lethal weapons.

Sorry, no. Please look up the Supreme Court’s findings in “District of Columbia v. Heller”. Note especially Section 1.d, which found ‘The Second Amendment’s drafting history…reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms.’

“Their hope was that we’d be able to get by with the equivalent of a part-time National Guard as a sufficient deterrent to foreign invaders such as England.”
Not quite. fear of England yes, but fear of Mercenaries even more.Mercenaries made up a very large part of the armies of the 1700’s.
The “English Army ” at the time of the Revolutionary war included a lot of German mercenaries, who were the backbone of the army.. Quite a few English people did not want to fight their English brethren in the Colonies. The English component of that Army were mainly drunks and poorly led by English Aristocrats who knew virtually nothing about military matters except their families expected them to do their “duty” as Officers. The Scottish invasion by “Bonnie Prince Charlie” showed how incompetent the British Army was . London was almost taken in that war.

As an American Jew whose father-in-law was the only member of his family to escape the Nazis (by leaving Germany barely early enough), I hardly think that any and all American descendants of concentration camp survivors can automatically be presumed to be predisposed to gun ownership, let alone gun-nut paranoia.

And back in reality I can assure you that armed German jews wouldn’t have made much difference as they would have faced the German army, and, after they managed to take a couple of German soldiers out, what do you think the rest of the Germans and the rest of the world would have thought about the Jews? How did armed resistance against government work out for the branch davidians? Where the American-Asians able to fend of interment during WWII? The “fending of government” argument is pretty meaningless in a modern society when it comes to small arms, and I presume that most – even – in the NRA oppose widespread private ownership of SAMs, AA guns, TOWs, Mortars, Howitzers, Anti tank guns and mines and all the other hardware that a group would need to defend oneself or oneself’s group from the any semi-modern Armed force.

I’m all for private ownership of howitzers, attack helicopters, guided missile destroyers, you name it. By my reading the 2nd Amendment gives you that right, what’s conspicuously absent (and I’m pretty sick and tired of having to this out to people), is any mention of ammunition. You can keep and bear all the arms you want, but you have no right to bullets.

Nobody has suggested they’d defeat the German Army. Rounding people up and subjecting them to tyrrany is done with guns- not battleships and bombers. Could you imagine what an unpopular job “Jew Hunter” would’ve been if every time you found one, he had a magazine fed gun and nothing to lose?

I’ve been around guns much of my life since dad bought me a Daisy model 99 Target Special BB gun when I was 12.

Most of the firearms I have owned have been for sporting or hunting use, and only a couple have been military or military-type, which was years ago, a Colt .45 automnatic Mark lV Gov’t model and a rifle described below, all 40 years ago.

What I don’t understand is all the paranoia about these AR- and AK-style and combat-style handgun weaponry. Apparently this is a fairly recent phenomenon, for it wasn’t long ago that individuals would strive to buy the nicest shotgun, the fanciest rifle, the coolest revolver, etc. Now? It’s all this “the sky is falling” personal-defense hardware that some arm themselves with that would be able to make war on certain small countries!

I enjoyed firing an M-16 – albeit only on semi-auto and 10 rounds at a time when in air force basic training in 1969. Never did I have any fantasies about owning one. Back then, I had aspirations on owning an M-1 Garand or M-1 carbine, but bought a 1942 Remington 03-A3 bolt-action rifle, which was really cool.

I guess my point is, all those who are arming themselves to the teeth have to ask themselves: “Am I ready to actually use this against someone, and if I do, will I be able to deal with the consequences?”

Personally, I fear nothing from the so-called “gun nuts”, but it’s not for me.

Perhaps the only car-related thing I can include here is: I love cars that have some flash to them in the way they are trimmed with chrome highlights and such. That’s why as far as firearms are concerned, I own a Henry Golden Boy .22 rifle, a Thompson-Center Hawken .50 muzzle loader (which hangs on my home-office wall) and a Ruger Vaquero stainless-steel revolver.

In other words, I like anything, whether cars or a nice firearm, that is attractive and something to take pride in.

AK-variant (not real AKs, you can’t get them full-auto capable) became popular 30ish years ago when you could pick one for $99 and a crate of 1000 milsurp rounds for another $99 and go have a really cheap afternoon at the range.

ARs are popular because they just are. They’re relatively cheap and easily customizable with more accessories than one can count. Not my cup of tea, but to each his own.

The vast majority of owners of either have other firearms. It’s just a popular platform that’s become ubiquitous.

I have 9 guns.. (on a tangent, I keep hearing in online debates with gun-control advocates that there needs to be a law mandating background-checks, I thought this was already the case, each one of those 9 firearms I bought I had to fill out a little questionnaire and do the background-check mambo and I was happy-enough to do it…. though the part where it asks what race I am always struck me as a bit questionable.)

1. Remington R11 (Because I of course wanted a 1911, because why not? And as such I wanted one as close to the original as possible because again, why not?)

2. Cimarron Arms flat-top revolver (Because I didn’t want to be yet another person owning a six-gun who automatically went for the Singe-Action Army.)

3. Springfield Armory XD45 (Springfield Armory, the original, the first name in American Firearms Manufacture proudly brings you the XD line of modern handguns.. made in Croatia! >xD )

4. Bushmaster ACR (Because everyone and their dog has an AR-15 clone. I guess I’d be that one person who bought a Volvo just so they’d be the only one on the block that didn’t have a Volkswagen.)

5. Tarus Judge (big beefy revolver that shoots .45 Long Colt as well as .410 shotshells, perfect for that evening stroll through snake-country.)

6. Rossi Circuit-Judge (Carbine version of the Judge, I bought it for much the same reason that I got the boomy-boomy flashy-lighty speakers for my Kia Soul, and I regret it just as much.)

7. Stoeger Double-Defense (20-gauge double-barrel shotgun, with tactical rails. It was just so Redneck I had to have it.)

8. Remington 870 (Because a gun collection without a 12-gauge is like a Metallica collection without the Black Album)

9. Yugoslavian SKS (It has a Grenade-Launcher! Grenade-launchers are cool, especially when they’re on 60-year-old rifles from countries that no longer exist.)

Do I ‘need’ all of these, or any of these for that matter? Nope, they do make life out in the sticks without broadband internet more entertaining though. :D

All my friends’ fathers and my dad kept gun racks over the back windows of their pickups years ago. I started with a Daisy at 7, 410 single shot at 9, and had to wait until dad got home before taking out the 22 rifle or my grandfather’s 12 guage Winchester pump. Dad would ask where I was going and what I was planning to shoot. I’d go hunting for quail or squirrels, or target shooting, with him and/or my older brother until it was demonstrated I had respect for the gun and everyone in range, which was long for the rifIe. I enjoyed using them and didn’t want to lose that privilege. They were unloaded on the back porch, cleaned regularly and never pointed at anyone –no matter how empty they were. That was all the guns in the house. I should be able to buy any gun on the market now, and I hope the market stays intact.

1. Clumsy, hyper-evangelism
2. Anti-theists who falsely represent themselves as atheists
3. Dogma which bears no resemblance to the canon

Gun culture has far too many hyper-evangelists who want to put guns in the hands of every living human being. They have little understanding of how long it took them to become comfortable around guns, nor do they understand the mindset of the modern, domesticated urban/suburban dweller. Compelled by their desire to fit in with society, they try to make society more compatible with their own lifestyle (at least this is my perception of modern evangelism).

Naturally, these hyper-evangelists ruffles feathers, which forges an army of dark forces. They plaster their automobiles with bumper stickers bearing pithy slogans. They infiltrate public services and academic institutions. They ignore all salient points and arguments, like “an overwhelming majority of US violent crime is intentionally perpetrated by organized gangs and drug cartels”. The refuse to answer questions like “how does evolution explain livestock breeding, livestock cloning, genetic modification of plant life, or the synthesis of autonomous single-celled organisms in laboratories?”. It’s not wonder Republicans support creationism, Monsanto has a majority stake in their bureaucracy.

Of course, the two camps of deviants are compelled by one central problem: fundamental lack of understanding regarding the meaning and intent of disputed documents. The 2nd Amendment is about supporting the ability of the states and the US Federal Government to maintain well-regulated militias. Unfortunately, that mission has been lost, and DC made a big mistake when they decided National Guard (the militia) could be conscripted as regulars for foreign conflicts. If we still had a functioning national militia, and the members had the same rights to refuse conscription as ordinary citizens, and gun privileges were tied to militia service (as gun laws are tied to law enforcement or active duty military), we’d have fewer gun problems, in my opinion.

Only problem is that everything in your post could apply to the most zealous gun control proponents (particularly those who would ban all private ownership of firearms). They never let the facts get in the way of a good argument. The total gun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, failed to reduce crime.

There is plenty of debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment. Its wording suggests that even the Founding Fathers were divided over its intent, so saying that one side or the other is necessarily “right” sets onself up for a fall. There is plenty of scholarship to support the individual right interpretation.

The bottom line is that government – local, state or federal – should not pass a law it cannot enforce.

We had to learn this with the 55 mph speed limit and Prohibition, and some people still have to learn it with firearms. Just as one hopes and prays that no one in 2013 is dumb enough to rail about Demon Rum or believe that driving 80 mph on a limited access highway is dangerous, we can only hope that the most fervent anti-gun zealots become better informed over time, too.

“Gun culture has far too many hyper-evangelists who want to put guns in the hands of every living human being.”

Actually, they want everyone who has not been convicted of a crime to have the right to own as many guns and ammo as they can afford. I am all for the freedom to own guns, but there are many people who I absolutely do not want to see owning guns and that’s besides criminals. Anyone who is not comfortable owning a gun and anyone who is – let’s just say – too comfortable owning a gun is dangerous. One is unable to learn proper respect and use of a gun, the other has no respect for a gun and what it can do. Both are the type of person that “accidentally” shoots someone.

Your condemnation of my hard work and carefully considered, deeply-held beliefs saddens me. I didn’t create this website to enable ignorance, vitriol and condescension. I created it for the honor of truth. How far you’ve strayed.

I never realized how pervasive the, “Ellsworth Toohey Effect” was around here. Best wishes to Farago. He built the unique and highly successful Truth About Cars dot com from nothing. Zero visitors, to one million. An unfortunate business agreement forced him out, only to have Farago build the amazingly successful The Truth About Guns dot com. I can only guess Bertel’s attack follows the now popular American belief, “you didn’t build that”. Sorry Bertel, but he did and you should be ashamed of yourself.

In our polarized society all it takes to start a riot is just to say, quietly and politely “gun”. Not even gun control, just “gun”. All the hysterical comments here about the ‘death of TTAC’ and how ‘liberal’ it is are emblematic of our fucked up country and our inability to have a dialog. The discussion on you Farago is entirely relevant, you’re the founder of TTAC. Furthermore, you look like a loon doing yoga in street clothes with a gun clumsily attached at the hip. As a gun owner, I’m not coming to your defense. You’re a legitimate subject for this forum.

The most devastating school massacre in history happened in Michigan in 1927, and involved the use of explosives planted in the school and a truck filled with shrapnel. The death toll was 44 – 38 children and six adults.

Jared Loughner did not have carefully considered beliefs. He was mentally ill, and held some anti-goverment views (of the left-wing variety), but he was a stalker more than anything else. Representative Giffords was his the target of his obsession.

Adam Lanza was upset that his mother was looking at ways to have him involuntarily committed for treatment. He was not motivated by any political beliefs.

I have not heard of James Holmes (the Aurora shooter) holding to any particular beliefs or views.

I am a gun owner, but I feel that the ultra right wing paranoid gun owners are doing more to take my rights away than the liberals ever could. Too many of you remind me of spoiled little children that are pouting because mommy and daddy are going to take your toys away.

Your futile attempt to arm your paranoid selves to the teeth and form anti government mini-militias will force the powers to be to take away all of our firearms – including my one and only little 9mm.

This is consistently the dumbest argument made by the pro-gun side. People don’t go around forcing water down other peoples throats to drown them. No one is going around with a fork forcing people to eat until the get fat enough to die. People don’t run around with torches purposely burning them. Same thing with car deaths that I am sure you will bring up sometime too… people generally are not purposely driving their cars through crowds of people hoping to kill them. If they ever started doing that, then yes, you can bet we would have a real problem on our hands. Similarly, drunk driving is against the law, not to mention vilified by society, because it is so dangerous to others as opposed to JUST driving a car sober and understanding that there can possibly be fatal accidents. Just because some other extremely common activity results in more deaths than firearms does not equate the two.

@geeber – I never said that just because someone owns multiple guns that they will shoot someone. I have no problem with people owning as many guns as they want… 5, 18, 500, whatever, knock yourself out.

I said that relating water, forks, fire, or cars to guns is a dumb argument commonly posed by the pro-gun guys and it doesn’t add up because of the nature of the deaths caused by those things compared to most gun-related deaths. Regardless of which side you support, using a bad or incorrect analogy isn’t going to further your cause. Very few people are forcibly attempting to kill others with water, food, fire, cars, etc. Even real weapons like knives or swords are much more difficult to use to kill multiple people like guns can. Perhaps if we were only debating accidental shootings, or suicides, then the argument might relate better to those other accidental deaths, but that is not the topic being heavily discussed these days so it doesn’t matter.

Your line of thought has occurred to me as well. Ironically, a small group of extremist, paranoid, delusional, trigger happy, possibly murderous gun nuts may well create their own self fulfilling prophecy.
I could picture Mr. Nugent leading such a group to its unpleasant Waterloo.

Except that curiously enough, all the headlines are garnered by those who are just effen nuts. They happened to use a gun, but were one not convenient, they would have used gasoline, or anyone of a hundred different ways to kill people.

The “gun nuts” that you so look down upon may, in fact, be a bit “off”. But that doesn’t mean they go shooting up schools. Because the science, and facts say that they don’t.

If one learns anything in life about crazy people, one should learn that they are often singularly focused, and as such, silly things such as laws are always worked around. Or ignored, like when they kill people.

I’m glad this site is no longer run by that delusional trust-fund wingnut. The lives of children should not be sacrificed for the beliefs of these parasites on society who think they will somehow protect us from the king of england.

Who said the lives of children were being sacrificed for beliefs or even sacrificed at all? Does NRA hold Satanic rituals sacrificing children?

Last I checked the official story was children were murdered by a troubled young man of limited training and experience carrying the wrong ID and may or may not have used a rifle depending on which reports you believe.

If the 2nd Amendment is supposed to be a group right, then it would be the only one that is.

It would be silly for a new country’s constitutional framers to:
a) declare that the nation had the right to an army (all nations do this), and/or
b) mean that the 2nd Amendment is about hunting. In a nation of hunters, this would have been redundant.

No, the 2nd Amendment is about protecting yourself from violations of the rights found in the other Amendments. The day the government kicks down your door in violation of your 1st, 3rd, or 4th Amendment rights, you’ll wish you had a gun to give the first guy in the door some second thoughts about doing do.

“If the 2nd Amendment is supposed to be a group right, then it would be the only one that is.”

Until the Heller case in 2008, that’s exactly what it was (and that didn’t apply to the states until 2010). The current interpretation isn’t even yet five years old.

“No, the 2nd Amendment is about protecting yourself from violations of the rights found in the other Amendments.”

Yes, people who don’t know much about US history tend to believe this sort of thing. Unfortunately, your view isn’t easily supported by pesky things that are referred to as “facts.”

You really need to put this into the context of the times. The Constitution, which replaced the original Articles of Confederation, centralized a fair bit of authority, including the control, training and leadership of the state militias. Shay’s Rebellion (which had made Jefferson titter with glee while he was based in France) was not regardless so warmly by the federalists back home such as Washington and Madison, who believed that rebellion had been something that should be reserved for opposing the English, not against Americans. They wanted to be able to deploy militias across state lines as necessary in order to put down rebellions.

Not all of the states were thrilled with the possible implications of this centralization of authority. The slave states in particular were concerned that the federal government would be able to prevent them from using their militias to put down slave revolts, given abolitionist sympathies in the North.

The Second Amendment helped to sort out that issue: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“State” is capitalized. This was no accident. This helped to clarify that the militias (which were now “well regulated” per Article 1 and 2 of the Constitution) could be used to protect the security interests of the individual states, and not just those of the federal government. If a state deemed it necessary to call the militia into service to fulfill a state purpose, it could do so.

” This helped to clarify that the militias could be used to protect the security interests of the individual states, and not just the federal government. If a state deemed it necessary to call the militia into service to fulfill a state purpose, it could do so”
The “militia’s also fulfilled the role of a Police Force, something that did not exist in the 1700’s. This might be taken a bit further with the US Constitution.
“Militias” were the prequel to standing armies and consisted of people from various regions. Very unlike the Mercenary Armies used in the 1700’s that were composed of ‘foreigners”
Currently “Militias” are Territorial or Reserve units in various countries.

“A “militia” would suggest mandatory part-time service for much of the population. The closest thing that we have to that in the US today is the National Guard, but service in it is not compulsory.”
Not manadatory for much of the population. Territorials are Volunteers a bit similar to the National Guard.

“So your interpretations of the facts trumps those of the Supreme Court?”

I agreed with four members of the Supreme Court, who noted that the majority opinion was based upon some rather blatant overreaching. Heller was bad law, and I can safely presume that replacing just one Supreme Court justice could get it overturned.

It’s pretty obvious from the debates over the Second Amendment at the time of its ratification that their concern was with the militia, including who controlled it, who would be excluded from serving in it, and what purposes it had. Madison, who wrote the original draft, wanted conscientious objectors to be exempted from it. His intent was to exclude them from being drafted into service, as the “right to bear arms” was, in fact, an obligation to serve in the militia; it clearly wasn’t his intent to claim that pacifists were to be provided with fewer personal liberties.

“The day the government kicks down your door in violation of your 1st, 3rd, or 4th Amendment rights, you’ll wish you had a gun to give the first guy in the door some second thoughts about doing do.”

Oh, God, the rote insurrection fantasy about stopping a theoretical federal dictatorship in America is alive and well. Beloved by many from Wayne LaPierre to the anarchist side of Edward Abbey. This is baloney for 3 reasons.

1. The right to use firearms against your own government is not mentioned in the 2nd Amendment, and Article 1 Section 8 of the constitution states the purpose of militias is to put down insurrections, not support them. So the entire premise is dubious, to be generous.

2. You must have really shaky faith in the American system of governance if you believe that our representative democracy is going to somehow turn into a repressive dictatorship that kicks down your door to suppress your free speech.

3. What do you think a pathetic home arsenal is going to do to the US Military? Honestly, we’re not living in colonial 1700s anymore, the discrepancy in firepower and training between the military and civilians is enormous now. Our military can steamroll the entire fighting forces of small nations and some of us think we will be able to stop them with an AR-15 under each arm from our living rooms.

If you think for a minute that “local authorities” will think twice about entering your home, legally or illegally, just because you own guns you are delusional.

You see this on the news constantly… “criminals” holed up in their homes, surrounded by SWAT teams and snipers, news helicopters swarming around to report about the nutcase that is about to be killed. By the time you reach that point no one cares whether or not you did anything illegal or why the cops are there, you are now seen as a threat to society and in most cases will end up dead so you can’t even tell your side of the story. Not that anyone will care, because the public will perceive you to be dangerous and crazy anyway.

I seem to recall a duly elected German government who had at the very least a significant role in the Second World War and the resulting genocide thereof. Election does not necessarily equal total legitimacy or the right to rule.

gslippy,
OK, I appreciate your elaboration. But I’m struggling to come up with a scenario where the brandishing or use of a firearm against a local police officer entering my home illegally would improve my situation.

If he’s entering my home to arrest me on false or fabricated charges, waving a gun at him will either get me shot or arrested on more charges that will be harder to get out of. Using the firearm against him will certainly get me shot. I guess you go out making a stand, but you could make a stand in the courts and still be alive.

Either way, it seems so improbable to me that I just have a hard time getting as amped up about this perceived purpose of the 2nd Amendment as some gun owners. But hey, if the Third Reich somehow materializes in America and starts going door to door you can have as many “I told you so’s” as you want!

“I seem to recall a duly elected German government who had at the very least a significant role in the Second World War”

Then your memory is not very good. The Nazis subverted the democratic process, then Hitler made himself a dictator.

For the last 200+ years, the US has been electing a president like clockwork every four years. If you don’t like the winner, then the answer is to support an alternative candidate and to persuade others to vote for that person.

It seems both of our statements contained some accuracy, while NSDAP did emerge as the largest party in the 1933 Federal election they did not obtain an outright majority. It seems later in that month as you pointed out the party gained effective dictatorial power but also through a democratic means, at least on the face of it.

“Federal elections were held in Germany on 5 March 1933. The Nazis registered a large increase in votes, again emerging as the largest party by far. Nevertheless they failed to obtain an absolute majority in their own right, needing the votes of their coalition partner, the DNVP German National People’s Party, or “Black-White-Red-Struggle-Front,” for a working majority. Thanks to the success in the poll, party leader Adolf Hitler – appointed Chancellor since 30 January – was able to pass the Enabling Act on 23 March, which effectively gave him the power of a dictator.”

on passing the Enabling act:

“In addition to this, Hitler needed a two-thirds majority to pass the Enabling Act, a law which allowed the Cabinet to enact laws without the approval of the Reichstag for a four-year period. He obtained this majority by persuading the Catholic Centre Party to vote with him with regard to the Reichskonkordat. The bill was passed on 23 March with 444 against 94 votes. Only the Social Democrats led by Otto Wels opposed the measure, which came into effect on 27 March. Several Social Democratic deputies were kept from attending, but even if all 120 Social Democrats had been present the measure would have still passed with the required supermajority. The powers gained from the bill turned the Hitler government into a de facto legal dictatorship.”

The Nazis used violence and the threat of violence to quash opposition parties, which helped them to gain that plurality. The SA was Hitler’s political terror organization before the Nazis secured power.

We don’t have anything like this. Every two years, we are voting for some type of federal official. There are no Brown Shirts here perpetrating violence. There is no comparison.

I agree at present in the United States thankfully there is no direct comparison and hopefully never will be. The point is in this case a political party was able to secure a significant amount of seats in a legitimate election and then of course show its true colors. Elections do not necessarily guarantee legitimacy of rule. This was proven by our own government by SCOTUS in 2000 with Bush v Gore.

“You don’t have the luxury of overthrowing a duly elected government just because it doesn’t make you happy.”

@Pch101: I’m not suggesting this. Don’t confuse unhappiness with tyranny. We get the leaders we elect. One overthrows tyrannical governments, not ones that make us unhappy. I may be taxed more than I like, but my elected representatives made that decision.

But someday when the government suppresses the right to free assembly – for example – shall I simply say I’m unhappy about it when the Constitution says otherwise?

@28-cars:
“Elections do not necessarily guarantee legitimacy of rule. This was proven by our own government by SCOTUS in 2000 with Bush v Gore.”

Some people keep believing this, but there wasn’t a single vote count in Broward County, etc., that favored Gore. The SCOTUS had to settle it.

“But someday when the government suppresses the right to free assembly – for example – shall I simply say I’m unhappy about it when the Constitution says otherwise?”

I thought that I was clear above: I don’t trust your judgment enough that I’d expect you to accurately interpret the Constitution, and I sure as hell don’t want you to make that interpretation on my behalf.

It really doesn’t help matters that virtually all of these internet Minutemen sound as if they themselves are fairly irrational. If there is to be a revolution, then I don’t want it to be led by a bunch of nutjobs who make it clear that they know virtually nothing about our laws or history.

PCH you have as little understanding of Heller as you do of Miller. Perhaps less.

The opinion on Miller was the only stated issue was that he had a firearm not suitable for the military/milita. Then it was remanded to the Circuit. Sadly, as Miller himself was murdered before the opinion was rendered, the Circuit never reheard it.

Because if they had, the fact that short barreled shotties of the type in question were a WWI trench weapon. Which would have laid NFA’34 wide open for overturn.

Good luck with the fantasy that the Supremes’ acknowledgement of the collective rights of the 2A being overturned. There is NO precedent to the contrary, and it had been assumed all along. Heller was just the modern formalizing of what was always assumed – but not challenged to reach the Court.

Beyond that, if you think Hitler had anything other than a popular mandate and election followed by a bit of chicanery (also publicly supported)to cement the deal, you need a history class. Desperately.

“Eviscerated my position” oh, that is *almost* as funny as the how bad you were spanked like a child when you tried to sell your ill-informed delusions at TTAG. I did watch. And chuckled. It was funny, they spent way more effort on you than I would have. Even funnier, was that for a guy with such “great knowledge” you didn’t even reply with any argument. Let alone one with logic and/or precedent.

Thanks, I’ve already gotten several EMs on how hilarious what I did to you *here* was, without even bothering to get to the actual rulings which seem to be beyond your ken. Not to mention your chasing squirrels and obvious misquotes that I planted.

You don’t even know (or ignore) what the dictionary and common-use definition of the term “well-regulated” was when The Constitution was written. Let alone “militia”.

So, do pray that you’re never in a Katrina situation. Your incessant calls to 911 (that aren’t answered) won’t help you get what you should have been prepared for all along. They’ll find your corpse in the attic, dead from heat exhaustion,ignorance, and depending on others. As well as those of your family.

And your vote doesn’t trump the constitution. The point was the protection of rights against a police force that would limit or eliminate them. The rights enumerated in the constitution and the restrictions to federal government power were to prevent the tyranny of the majority. Just because you don’t like my opinion and you are in teh majority doesn’t mean you should be able to shut me up (1st amendment) as an example of rights protecting the minority against the tyranny of the majority. The laws are there for the courts to (hopefully) protect the minority aganst oppression from the executive and legislative arms of the government who, as elected officials, are beholden to the majority and less likely to oppose them.

“The rights enumerated in the constitution and the restrictions to federal government power were to prevent the tyranny of the majority.”

That’s true. And it doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution that this includes a right to overthrow the government. The way to avoid tyranny by majority is via the checks and balances provided by having separate legislative, judicial and executive branches.

A lot of people seem to confuse the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. They were, for the most part, written and signed by different people. (Incidentally, Thomas Jefferson didn’t write or sign the latter.)

The Federalists rejected the notion of using revolution to overthrow the American government; that right had been reserved for opposing a foreign occupier (the English king). There were a few founders, such as Jefferson, who claimed to like the idea of ongoing periodic bloodshed, but they were expressing a minority view. (Believe it or not, there were many founders, and Jefferson didn’t speak for all or even most of them.)

One of the purposes of the Constitution was to put an end to such violent rebellions, not to perpetuate them. The federal government was given control over the militias so that it could have militias at their disposal to put down rebellions. There is nothing in the Constitution that recognizes any right to overthrow the American government; we can pass laws, elect new representatives and amend the Constitution if we want to change things.

The 2nd amendment is about protecting our constitutionally protected rights against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If the government is the one violating those rights, then they’ve violated their oath and ARE the insurrection.

People don’t like gunships strafing their neighborhoods. Heavy weapons are for invasions. Occupations and opression is done with guns.

We were English subjects who rebelled against a government that refused to defend our rights as English subjects (yes, I realize that is pre-constitution/USA). To say that the framers of the constitution had no thought that the government they were forming could at some point fail to defend the rights of the governed seems ludicrous to me given what they had just gone through. As James Madison said, if men were angels, we would not need laws. He was well aware that men are inherently self-interested. An armed citizenry is one defense against the tyranny of evil men. Yes, they put in place a system of checks and balances, but they also added the first ten amendments to the constitution to garner acceptance from states that were afraid of a federal government tromping all over them and the rights of citizens. Among those rights is the right to keep and bear arms. An armed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.

If you would actually take the time to learn about the history of said amendment, then you would know that the “right to bear arms” was the right to be drafted into a militia, a militia that was regulated by the federal government.

I understand that you have a right-wing idealized view of American history, but your views are just factually wrong. Federalists such as Madison wanted to **stop** the rebellions that were occurring after the revolution. They did not want the public to attempt violent revolution anymore.

It was Shay’s Rebellion and the ongoing threat of continued unrest that encouraged the creation of a federal system of government with more centralized power, as well as a constitution to replace the confederation. The history is pretty much the opposite of how you describe it, and I would suggest that you learn about what they did, instead of restating what you wish they had done.

“RF did appear to call out Bertel for his ‘condemnation of his hard work’ a few lines above me which puts him closer to the DuPont theory.”

And where does that put Bertel for posting such a childish bait piece on an automotive site?

Actually, this was more of a desperate attempt to generate click…just like the white-hooded GM hate articles that are always posted. Only this time, he was able to trash someone in the process.

This site is being flushed down the toilet faster than the country. Maybe the site should be renamed “The Huffington Posts Truth About Cars”….far more fitting. Not so much journalism as it is false stories trashing people or in this case, automotive brands.

Whether or not this post could be construed as a desperate attempt to generate clicks, I don’t think that a massive page-1 Sunday Washington Post article with a large photo of the site’s founder toting a gun (and even more photos online than the three or four total in the paper) could simply be ignored by the present editor-in-chief.

I suppose it could be argued that the Post article should have been ignored, but the amount of extra publicity given to Farago here (beyond what he’s getting from the Post’s editors) is negligible.

In any case I’ll keep coming back. As always, I’ll just skip the posts that don’t interest me. This one was interesting.

Its almost comical, reading through all the comments it is fairly clear which ones are posted by the gun extremists vs the quite normal gun owners. And most of those extremists are the ones who think Farago is a genius too.

And it is also quite clear which posts are made by the confiscate all guns left wing nuts. Your point? Maybe that the ones who want to restrict gun ownership to the military and internal policing orginizations are sane sensible people whose opiinions should be respected, and all others are nuts? Or, did you inadvertently fail to call out the posters who seem to have a low opinion of all gun owners bordering on hatred?

I didn’t call them out because I didn’t see any of that being said. Most of the “anti-gun” comments were from posters outside of the US who were generally surprised at our views of the need to have so much firepower at our disposal, but otherwise fairly open minded. Who exactly made mention that all guns should be banned and limited only to LE or military?

I certainly don’t think that, I have no issue with people owning guns. I have issues with the mentality of some people who exhibit extreme paranoia by their comments about needing to be armed at all times against the bogeyman, the irrational belief that they need guns to keep the govt from violating their freedom, and the fact that guns and the power they represent do tend to attract a lot of nut cases, in addition to the many normal, respectful law abiding gun owners who treat weapons with the respect and seriousness they deserve.

It was clear from your comments I read that you are definitely pro-gun, and although I can’t say I agree with everything you said, I can respect your opinion and see your point. Other commenters clearly come across as ultra paranoid, trigger happy gun nuts. Still others are a little too naive about the state of guns in the US but aren’t going to cause harm either. It’s not a simple question but its going to be debated like it or not, and the wing nuts are hurting the gun lobby more than anything else is.

I used to think that a parallel could be drawn between car and firearm enthusiasts but I’m not so sure after seeing a few episodes of these gun shop reality shows where guns are treated as playthings for those with more money than sense.

I have no problem with citizens owning and collecting firearms but showing off a quick-change magazine or combat sight in much the same way you would a supercharger or set of headers undermines the respect and solemnity that all firearms deserve.

My father was in the Army for 22 years and growing up on military bases surrounded by soldiers who have seen first hand the death and devastation that modern firearms can cause instills a healthy respect for all guns. It seems to me this respect is lacking in many of those who have never had to use a firearm to wage war or defend themselves – this is what scares me.

Hey, give Bertel some credit. He managed, on a very low-content day, to nonetheless keep the kids occupied. Think that’s so easy? He even got a sanctimonious few lines from RF himself. Appears his tender feelings were hurt.

I feel sorry for many citizens of the USA. Too fearful to leave the house without strapping on iron. And then to call it “freedom.” I also feel sorry for many of the oppressed in Canukistan. For different reasons though.

What fluff. Next time, how about writing something useful. Like, does Farago know where I can score some 5.56 ammo? Or any ammo? Or, if not, at least post some pics of young Asian women in skimpy outfits, like you usually do.

I have written material for both sites under Robert’s watch, even though I have a limited interest in the gun hobby. I view him as a mentor of sorts because the biggest part of his arsenal is his ability with the written word. He predicted early in the game that his gun website would be very big and he was right on the money.The man knows how to attract readers in any subject matter and the gun debate will always be a red hot topic in the US, just look at the feedback to this Bertel story.

That said,I actually felt that Bertel’s piece was an homage to Robert, given that his assessment of the man was based upon Robert’s legacy and Bertel’s personal interaction with Robert. I seriously doubt that it was meant to slag Robert from my perspective.

He bought his first gun a week before he launched the truth about guns website? Sounds like a business man not a gun enthusiast. Will he buy his first set of rollerblades a week before he launches the truth about rollerblades? Phony gun nut.

My personal observation is that people whose fear of guns drives them to want to ban guns (as a general class of machine – not just specific types) are ~often~ (but not always) people who have no mechanical ability or background or history of working with their hands on any type of project be it metal, wood, plastic, masonry or any other media.

In my opinion, respect for tools is the first basic trait of a responsible gun owner with overall respect for life being the second, though many will say that I might have the order of desired traits reversed.

Please note all of the above are my personal opinions only. I have no research references or studies to back up these observations.

Farago took a chance on me as a freelance blogger and mentored me… I’ll never forget that, and my respect for his insight, skills and tenacity remain undimmed. The man’s ability to create two juggernauts like TTAC and TTAG from nothing speaks for itself.

I have to say though, I’m slightly bemused by the whole gun thing. I distinctly recall (years ago now) making the argument to Farago that cars are at least as deserving of the “tools of freedom” rhetoric that is so lavished on firearms. I absolutely respect the Second Amendment, but the freedom of mobility is more meaningful to me personally, on a day-to-day basis, than that of owning a firearm. And, to put a surreal twist on the whole situation, people kill each other with cars more than guns in this country.

A question for MNM and others who think it is paranoid that people feel the need to carry a handgun on them when in the house, concealed carry out in public etc, what is the difference between this and buying fire insurance for your house? Is that paranoid too? What is more precious, your own life And the life of your loved ones, or being paid for the loss of your house?

I honestly don’t know the difference in the odds, but the chance you might need a firearm, even if very remote, is a compelling argument if you believe in insurance.

I own multiple firearms and am a CCW holder, even though I don’t carry daily ( I keep it in my car), but I sure am thinking about it. Also, if you don’t think that our government is going down the road of eroding our rights and liberties, and want the US populace disarmed, you’re not paying attention.